


Harrowing

by mercurybard



Category: Dragon Age: Origins, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: au_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-28
Updated: 2010-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurybard/pseuds/mercurybard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody said a mage's Harrowing was going to be anything like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harrowing

**Author's Note:**

> Dragon Age: Origins belongs to Bioware, and The Vampire Diaries is The CW's. Written for my au_bingo card. Prompt-Fantasy & Supernatural: Sword & Sorcery.

Bonnie just stared at the spot where the Pride demon she had known so briefly but—she’d thought—so well as ‘Mouse’ had been. When she’d heard other mages mention their Harrowings, she’d never imagined that hers would be like this…the Fade, so twisted and strange as only the land of dreams and the dead could be…

A slow clap broke her reverie. Bonnie whirled, hands tightening on the staff the Spirit of Valor had given her. At this point, she was ready to be confronted with anything—a talking teapot, perhaps, or a vision of Grams—and was slightly disappointed to see a man leaning against what looked like an overgrown tree root. A handsome man, sure, with a cocky little smirk and pale eyes, but just a man. Then again, she’d thought Mouse was just a human spirit trapped in the Fade. The newcomer clapped again. “Bravo. You’ve been here, what? Less than two hours? And I’ve watched you badger a Valor spirit and a Sloth demon into helping you, and then tell a Pride demon where to stuff it. I must say—I’m impressed.”

“What are you?” Bonnie demanded.

“Shouldn’t the question be ‘who are you’?”

“Not after the night I’ve had.”

He nodded absently. “Fair point. Unlike everyone else you’ve stumbled across, I’m actually human…and not lying when I say that.”

She didn’t believe him for a moment, but she loosened her grip on the staff ever-so-slightly. “If you’re human, then what are you doing in my Harrowing?”

He looked around and laughed. The laugh, like the smirk, like everything about his demeanor was mocking, as if this was all one big joke to him. Maybe it was. Maybe she’d somehow stumbled out of whatever pocket of the Fade she’d been thrust into when she took the lyrium and into his dream. “I was bored, so I thought I’d take a quick jaunt across the Fade…see what there was to see. I hadn’t expected to stumble upon a pretty, young apprentice facing off against a Pride demon, but I have to say, it was most entertaining.”

“I’m so pleased you find my testing to be so amusing,” Bonnie snapped. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“The name’s Damon. Damon Salvatore.”

“You’re Antivan?”

“It’s been a couple of decades since I saw Antiva, but it was my homeland once.”

This Damon didn’t look old enough to have spent ‘a couple of decades’ away from anywhere. At the most, he was maybe ten years her senior. “Show me your true form, then.”

“Well aren’t you the rude one.”

“I was hauled out of my bed in the middle of the night, dragged to the top of the tower, and told that if I didn’t face and defeat a demon, then the templars were going to kill me. Sorry if it’s making me a little testy.”

“In that case, take a good look,” Damon said, gesturing to his clothes and trim frame, “Because this is my true form. Why bother assuming a different shape when the one I’ve got suits me just fine?” He grinned luridly.

Bonnie had the sudden urge to bash him over the head with the staff. Could he be another part of her Harrowing, or could he really just be a dream-walking mage? What kind of power would it take to break free from the constraints of sleep and go wandering? She’d never heard of that kind of power, but then again, her training was limited. Her head ached from trying to force the skewed perspective of the Fade into focus, and she just wanted to go home and go back to bed. “You are an ass,” she snapped.

Then the world went blindingly bright, and she knew she was being pulled back out of the Fade, her Harrowing finished. The last thing she saw before her vision whited out was that insufferable smirk on Damon’s face. “You? I think I’ll be seeing you again, little mageling,” he called.

Bonnie wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a threat or a promise.


End file.
